BenQ FP222Wa review

A 22-incher that promises much

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Our Verdict

It has its faults, particularly if you're looking for an entertainment-centred monitor, but is a solid performer otherwise

For

Good value

Well specced

Against

Poor colour reproduction

As a 1680 x 1050 22-inch display, the FP222Wa widescreen monitor is well suited to home-users; especially so when taking the 5ms response time into consideration. The flexible viewing angle means it's great for movies and the 4:3 ratio allows two A4-sized documents to be open at the same time.

Unfortunately, it only ships with VGA (though the FP222W comes with DVI), a big let-down for an entertainment-orientated display.

Using a DB15-to-DVI converter boosted the output and brightness levels somewhat, but DisplayMate tests still lacked the kind of punch and saturation most of its rival high-end displays show.

The 300cd/m2 brightness level doesn't seem to translate to the picture, though neither does the 700:1 contrast ratio. A 25-165MHz video bandwidth is impressive and movies look crisp enough, and a Doom3 demo at 60fps was solid.

This is an impressively specified and great value display only let down by poor colour reproduction and no DVI.